Computer

Software
1 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer
What is a Software?
 Software refers to the set of computer programs, procedures and
associated documents(flowcharts) which describe the program and
how they are to be used.
 More precisely, a software means a collection of programs whose
objective is to enhance the capabilities of the hardware.
 A software package is a group of programs which solve a specific
problem or perform a specific type of job.
 E.g.: A word processing package may contain programs for text-
editing, text formatting, spell checking etc.
 Hence, a multipurpose computer system has several software
packages, one each for every type of job it can perform.
 Software includes things such as websites, programs or video
games, that are coded by programming languages like  C or C++.
 "Software" is sometimes used in a broader context to mean
anything which is not hardware but which is used with hardware,
such as film, tapes and records.

2 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer

Differences between hardware / software?
 There are several differences between computer hardware and software.
 However, the fundamental difference between hardware and software is that
hardware is a physical device something that you're able to touch and see.
 For example, the computer monitor you're viewing this text on or
the mouse you're using to navigate is considered computer hardware.
 Software is code and instructions that tell a computer and/or hardware how to
operate.
 This code can be viewed and executed using a computer or other hardware
device. However, without any hardware software would not exist.
 An examples of software is Microsoft Windows, an operating system that
allows you to control your computer and other programs that run on it. Another
example of software is the Internet browser you're using to view this page.

3 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer

Types of Software:
 Software can be divided into two major categories:
 1.System Software
 2.Application Software

 Note:

 Programs included in system s/w are called system programs and

programmer who prepare it are called as system programmers.

 Programs included in Application s/w are called application programs and

programmer who prepare it are called as application programmers.

4 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer

System software:
 System software helps run the computer hardware and computer
system. It includes combination of the following:
 device drivers
 operating systems
 servers
 utilities
 windowing systems
 It is a set of one or more programs, designed to control the operations
and extend the processing capability of computer system.
 It performs following tasks like:
 Supporting the development of other application s/w.
 Supporting the execution of other application s/w.
 Monitoring the effective use of various h/w resources like cpu ,memory
etc.
 Communicating and controlling the operations of h/w resources like
printer, disk etc.

5 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer

Application Software:
 Application software allows end users to accomplish one or more specific (not
directly computer development related) tasks.
 They are set of one or more programs designed to solve a specific problem or a task.
 Typical applications and s/w are:
 Business software
 Computer games
 Telecommunications (i.e., the internet and everything that flows on it)
 Databases uses database s/w for creating, maintaining, organizing database.
 Educational software that allow computer be used as teaching tool etc.
 Medical software
 Word processing uses word processing s/w for editing, creating documents.
 Application software exists for and has impacted a wide variety of topics.

6 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer

 Logical System Architecture:

Application
S/w

System S/w

7 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer

Software Development Steps:
 Analyzing the problem at hand.
 Planning the programs to solve it.
 Coding the programs.
 Testing and Debugging.
 Documenting the programs.
 Implementing the programs.
 Evaluating and maintaining the programs.

8 Neha Asthana,IT Lecturer